Homemade Butter and Buttermilk

Ingredients

6 cups heavy cream, preferably organic

1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt

Special equipment:

Special equipment: 5-quart stand mixer (or larger)

Preparation

Transfer cream to bowl of 5-quart electric stand mixer fitted with whisk attachment. Tightly cover top of bowl and mixer with plastic wrap. Beat cream at moderately high speed until it holds soft peaks, 10 to 12 minutes. Increase speed to high and beat until mixture separates into thick, pale-yellow butter and thin, liquid buttermilk, about 5 minutes more.

Strain mixture through colander into large bowl. Using hands, vigorously knead butter in colander, squeezing out remaining buttermilk, until dense and creamy, about 5 minutes.

Transfer butter to large bowl, reserving buttermilk. Using hands, knead salt into butter. Roll into logs and wrap in plastic wrap or transfer to airtight container and refrigerate. (Butter will keep up to 1 week refrigerated or 1 month frozen.)

Strain buttermilk through fine-mesh sieve, then cover and refrigerate up to 1 week.

SELECT LATEST REVIEWS

I didn't know this could be done; so cool! I didn't keep exact time, but I knew it was done when I turned my back briefly and felt the buttermilk splatter across my face (probably why they tell you to cover the mixer). By that time the butter had very little liquid so I didn't knead it, but strained it through cheese cloth with a couple squeezes. I just used a pint for starters and got 1c buttermilk on the dot and a lump of butter about the size of a baseball. Really nice result! They will both turn into biscuits tomorrow. Can't wait!

A Cook / 11.26.14

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The quality of the
butter you end up will vary greatly
by the quality of the cream you
use. I am very fortunate to have
access to extremely fresh dairy
products from a local
family farm and I used their barely
pasteurized cream - WOW! This
butter is the best thing I think
I've tasted in my life. I used 3
cups of cream and got 14 oz of
butter and a little over 1 cup of
buttermilk. It only took about 7
minutes total in the KitchenAid
mixer - watching for the visual cues
as the Tallahassee reviewer noted is
pretty key. This is really special
butter!

tomese from Louisville, KY / 02.25.10

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A lot of fun. I used the same settings on my Kitchenaid that the other reviewer used, but changed speeds when I notioced the visual cues the recipe called for. The end product is delicious, buttermilk and all. Very nice compared to store bought products.

French792 from Tallahassee, FL / 06.02.08

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I have been
making "homemade"
butter every
Thanksgiving with
the children in my
special education
classes for 20
years. Here is a
tip for you; put
the milk in a
plastic container
(with a plastic
marble-optional)
and shake
vigorously. No
messy clean-up.
Simply pour off the
liquid, as you
stated, and squeeze to remove the excess liquid.... "So
simple, even a child
can do it!"

Rocciada from Mountain Top, PA / 05.22.08

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Great Recipe! I
just finished making
it and the end
result tastes great!
I got roughly 18
Oz. (a little over a
pound) of great
tasting butter, and
almost an entire
quart of Buttermilk.
I bake, A LOT, and
try to use only
organic (very
costly) ingredients
in my baking. I am
hoping that this
will turn out to be
a real help for me
to ultimately keep
my costs down.
I Mixed this at #6
speed on my
KitchenAide Mixer
for 10 minutes, then
switched to #10
speed for the last 5
minutes.
The only mess came
at the very last
minute, when the
mass of Butter tried
to fly out of the
bowl. Other than
that, this was a
very easy recipe to
make.

BetseyD from Manchester, NH / 05.08.08

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Holy Cow! What a
kick. Made two
batches. First one,
divided between
regular use and made
a compound butter to
stick in freezer for
later. Fun for my
son and it is
delicious. If you
are concerned about
bacteria from hands,
use plastic
gloves--works great

kayelynne from Oregon / 04.27.08

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My dad says old fashioned butter was made from cultured cream. (You can buy the culture at the same place you get culture for making homemade yogurt.) We saw an old-timey demonstration where they shook a jar of manufacturer's cream (NOT highly pasteurized - commercially it is not called manufacturer's cream, but it is the same thing as Clo's in the green and gold packaging if you can find it - we haven't been able to!). After 10 - 15 minutes of shaking, they got butter and fresh buttermilk. It was delicious!

Harvest75 from Northern California / 04.18.08

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i love homemade butter, but i would never use my hands to knead it because the hands have so much bacteria, no matter how clean they were - this would cause the butter to spoil too quickly. instead, i would just use spatulas to help squeeze as much moisture from the butter as possible. homemade butter is a longwinded process, but there is nothing on the market which compares to it for creaminess and mouthfeel.

whisks / 04.16.08

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I made butter weekly on my parents farm. WE "washed" the butter with cold water before adding salt and putting it in a crock.

darlenewhite from Canadian prairies / 04.16.08

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Brings me back to first grade, when we learned to make butter by shaking cartons of whipping cream!
Neat idea, but there are so many good, organic butters on the market now, I wouldn't be tempted to make my own very often. I do, however, always make my own whipped cream!